SharePoint 2010 : Use Wiki Syntax to Link to Existing Content and Create Pages

Linking to Existing Content

To link to existing content while typing text in a wiki page, type [[. This opens a pop-up menu that shows a list of existing pages available in the site (see Figure 1). To link to one of these pages, simply select it from the menu and add ]]. The item is added to the text as [[pagename]], and when you save the document, this is transformed into a link to that page.

Figure 1. Typing [[ a wiki page opens a pop-up menu that allows you to quickly link to another page.

The menu also offers two special options at the bottom: List and View. Selecting one of these is the same as typing [[List: or [[View:. You can then start typing either the name of the list or the view that is in the current site, and SharePoint autocompletes the name of the list as you type it or allows you to choose a list and then an item or view (depending on whether you selected List or View in the first level, as shown in Figure 2).

Figure 2. When you start typing the list name, SharePoint shows you the lists you can choose from.

As before, the text shows as [[List:listname]], and this transforms into a link to the list or view when you save the page. For example, [[List:Sample List]] shows up in the page as the name of the list (Sample List), and it is linked to the list. Typing [[List:Sample List/1|sample item]] links to the item in the list Sample List with the title Sample Item, as shown in Figures 2 and 3.

Figure 3. The syntax to link to a list item in a list.

Figure 4. The link is shown as the list item’s title.

Creating New Pages

If you are writing something and realize that a certain word or term in your text should link to a page that needs to be created, you don’t need to stop and create it right away. Instead, you can use the wiki syntax to mark it as a link and then create it later—or let someone else create it. To do this, simply type the term you want to make into a link inside double square brackets. For example, if you write [[Product X]], the words Product X appear on the page as a link, even if there is no page for that product.

When you save the page, the link looks different from other links; it is underlined with a black dotted line, as shown in Figure 5. Clicking this link opens the New Page dialog, which allows you (or other users) to quickly create a page for the word (or words) you wrote, as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 5. A link to a page that doesn’t exist yet is marked with a black dotted underline.

Figure 6. The New Page dialog for a wiki link.